EX.pm
-----
has forumdb => sub {
        my $self = shift;

        my $dbh = DBI->connect(
            'dbi:mysql:database=php_BB;host=localhost','user', 'pass',
            {RaiseError => 1}
        );
        return $dbh;
};

# This method will run once at server start
sub startup {
  my $self = shift;

  # setup the DB connector here, because mysql disappears, this will stop that from happening
  $self->helper('forumdb' => sub { return shift->app->forumdb });
  $self->plugin('EX::DBHelpers');
}


------------
DBHelpers.pm
------------
eval { $sth = $self->forumdb->prepare($sql) };